Acid

[Ford Prefect]

I have a question. Is Earl Makeson a Zombie reporter, or just a Robot reporter?

He was raised be wolverines.

And was that that THE Ron Burgandy from Anchorman? Or was I only dreaming of it?

Yes, indeed.

[Ford Prefect]

Here we go chaps and chapeses! The end game, the final countdown. Soon, this story shall be finished (I estimate three of these extra long chapters should be enough). Hopefully, you will enjoy what is, quite frankly, the the most heavily action packed chapter so far. To be honest, I'd have liked to have inserted more stuff, but I feel it would have been cluttered.

Acid
Overture - Things Might Get Trippy
Part Nine

Samuel Johnson, esper and Shadow Walker for the Guild, stood in his grey uniform and black tactical vest. He had replaced his beret with a helmet. He cradled a rifle in his arms, though truth be told, he didn't really need it. No Shadow Walker did, not with their honed metahuman talents. Unless their metahhuman talents had something to do with accuracy and reflexes. Johnson frowned, shook his head, and glanced around him. He was at the centre of a significant German military presence. They'd been hit hard, but they still had tanks, and they still had significant infantry – squads lingered in the windows, weapons well-placed to rain hell.

There was a screech overhead as those black wings made a pass. Johnson had heard some say that they looked French, and speaking with his superiors indicated that they might well be French nEUROn UCAVs – yet they remained little more than technology demonstrators. But as PD lasers lanced futilely skyward from the Leopards, Johnson could clearly see they were not mere demonstrators. Another made a pass and he swung both hands, sending the delta wing spiraling.

Fighting these invaders was not why Johnson was there, however. No, he had been deployed to deal with the girl. He was on what was likely to be her course. They had her on the UN command vehicle's scope – a pattern blue big enough to be seen from the goddamn moon – and she was meandering in that general area. Johnson had lost contact with SitCom some time ago, but he could feel her regardless. A warm, feathery touch, quite unlike any other telepathic sensation he had ever experienced. It was vastly worse than the veritable ocean pounding against his mental barriers from parts unknown.

She was close now. So close that Johnson felt compelled to leave the safety of the tank wall. He had theorised that she was telepathically influencing people around her; he knew that and he still went.

As they approached each other, he sensed soldiers aiming their guns and tanks and plasma cannons at the girl. When Johnson and Sophie were within two metres, the Technotheocracy struck. Missiles, cannon fire and energy weapons blistered past in twisting trails of exhaust, straight rules of ionised air and crackling arcs of electricity. Explosions and hot light pattered against an invisible dome surrounding the two of them.

“Hello.” Johnson said hoarsely, sitting down. Flame caressed the barrier and noise seemed to hum in the distance. She reached out.

“Hiya.”

*

For the third time, Major Ulysses Stirling reattached his armour plates. Alexei, the only occupant of the cramped Polaris who wasn't clad in full battledress, watched as each other man (and one woman), went through the motions. He briefly considered what it was like for the Junker pilot, locked into his gel-filled cubby, clamped beneath the mighty orbital attack plane. Who knew? Junker pilots were weirdos.

“We'll be making reentry in one minute boys and girls.” Lucifer said across the tactical bands. “About ten seconds latter we'll be in Berlin. Hold tight.”

At once, Deep Blues clipped on their helmets, as did Wei and the Major. Alexei could hear adaptive filaments moaning as they tightened around reassuring, though entirely superfluous, handholds. Alexei laced his fingers behind his head. The Saintly concerns taskforce hit the wall of atmosphere, and if they could look out, they would see a world of flames. Alexei briefly recalled that once upon a time, re-entry resulted in communications being cut off. That would have been deadly, considering they were relying on remote control by a distant intelligence. Clearly some of the others had remembered that piece of trivia, because they were holding on for dear life.

“EIS active.” Lucifer intoned. A dozen aircraft became invisible save for the noise and heat boiling from their absurdly powerful scramjet fusion drives. The Technotheocracy flagship blinked in surprise at heat signals without a cause, and the crew practically exploded into action. They set about working out just what it was, contacting the Zealous-class war-wings. Before the warning could reach the sky-moasterys, over fifty pulsing lasers began to boil away armour layers.

Lucifer couldn't destroy the flying machines, for fear that their enormous bulk would cause enormous damage to the city below. But he could drive them off. Mave UCAVs swept through swarms of shadowy enemies, lasers popping them into flaming balls of wreckage. EIS couldn't handle the heat, and shut down. Hungry missile racks clanked open and rippled off dozens upon dozens of swirling cloud-lines of missile exhaust. Verniers flared in tongues of blue flame, sending bloody red Maves into tumbles and spins, rolling through the swarms. Glittering clouds of chaff and magnesium bright flares confused missiles off target, forced them to erupt early.

They were not F-22X fighters, but regardless, there was something special about Tony Saint's Maves. As they unleashed a screen of tiny, high-maneuverability missiles, the Polaris fighters peeled out of the fight, a tail of black clinging tight to each dagger-shaped plane. Glass leapt out of buildings, and from the bellies of these magnificent flying machines leapt something large, in the shape of the man. The battlesuits went down, feet first, skidding along block after block of road, leaving upturned concrete for the Berlin city council to deal with in the aftermath.

Deep Blues dropped in their squads of four, free-falling into waiting blobs of acceleration gel; or rather, deceleration gel. Dull red jello molds splattered out of shape, but served their purposes of reducing bone-shattering impacts into merely bruising ones. Planes roared overhead as Deep Blues scattered, disappearing as their camouflage came into effect. Elsewhere, in another part of the city, Saintly Concerns operatives were released, and they crashed through windows, skidding through walls, desks, sending computers and papers flying. Like a well oiled machine, two went to the window and opened fire upon the Technotheocracy troops below. Rifle launched micro-missiles struck the top armour of the far forward EMV. Hypersonic streams of metal lanced through into the cabin.

The two soldiers pulled back, towards their comrades. They had an elevator door peeled open. One Deep Blue stepped through.

Falling, the HUD highlighting the shaft and the elevator rushing 'up' to meet the soldier. The roof burst and the Deep Blue was on the floor, already at the door; a second later, his fire-mate joined him. A breath, and the other two were down, and the heavy doors were practically torn apart. Thermobaric warheads erupted amongst the infantry, and the second EMV rotated its turret towards them.

A hole the size of a pumpkin opened in its side. There was a terrible screeching of metal as the hovering IFV tried to turn inside out. Clouds of concrete bloomed, obscuring Odmilita troopers being torn apart by chaingun fire. A sprinting Junker, it's long barreled scram cannon still lazily discharging eye-searingly white cords of electricity, vaulted the crashing, mangled EMV and passed on. Deep Blues bounded after it.

The Polaris' engines screamed as it pulled into a turn that would have killed its compliment of soldiers instantly. The Major held on as Lucifer rolled through the oncoming nEUROn squadron. Missiles fired, whipped about like dragonflies and tore enemy UCAVs to pieces. “You're alright I take it, Major.” Lucifer asked through the earbud.

The Major nodded. “And you?”

“Well, Tony's not going to be happy about loosing two of the Maves. Of course, I live in sixteen different locations across the planet. I can't be anything other than fine.” There was a pause where the launch catapult clicked into place. “Good luck, Major.”

When Lucifer launched the Major, the Polaris had been making approximately one-eighth the speed of sound. Naturally, so was the Major. Naturally, the multiped tank was extremely surprised. While its hull did not deform, it went crashing straight into the road, legs punching through the tarmac. The crew went into action, and the commander found himself looking at a helmeted head through the cannon-camera. He moved to fire. The Major moved his head. There was a spray of sparks. The impact of the sabot into Stirling's face sent him flying; he hit the ground a couple of hundred metres beyond the bridge and rolled into cover behind a building. The penetrator was long gone, nothing more than a perfectly straight line of azure cut into the air. The Major briefly crossed himself, thankful that that hadn't hit him.

He shivered and pulled off his helmet. Blood trickled over the bridge of his nose, and the helmet had a frightening crater on it. On a Deep Blue, that sort of blunt impact would have snapped necks. Turning the helmet over in his hands, he found a remarkably deep fissure in the carbon-carbon shell. The Major crossed himself again.

Moving quickly, he fished out the eyepatch and fitted it over one eye. He no longer had his helmet, but he would not be without its useful functions. There was a buzzing in his head; Wei's voice: “Major, I need your assistance.”

He was on his feet and moving.

Wei was crouched in cover, and the Major slid down next to him. To the south was a bridge over the Spree; the girl was on the other side, according to reports. An obstacle existed, however, and that obstacle was Nazis. Resplendent in shiny black uniforms and gleaming blonde hair, they appeared to be marching in circles, goosestepping in formation in the same place. At the same time, a man, hovering a foot from the ground, was preaching to his soldiers. “The Avenging Aryan.” Wei said. His face was hidden within his helmet. “And two dozen of his chosen friends.” There was a twin click as both men readied their enormous rifles.

“This isn't enough firepower for the Aryan.” Wei noted, and the Major smoothly produced what may have been a shotgun ... or it may have been a grenade launcher. Wei shook his head and the Major found himself frowning. Glancing down the street using his mirror, he smiled.

Hannah was Johan's right hand woman, so naturally she stood at his right hand while he proudly screamed in the name of National Socialism. His eyes were closed as he extolled their virtues, the promise of a Thousand Year Reich. He wasn't as good as the Fuhrer (but then, who was?), but he was an orator. His swelling pride infected his lieutenant, and all the men. And Hannah found pride in the men – straight backed, legs snapping out like blades of steel. Only, one wasn't paying attention. Hannah pulled faces at him, and the soldier shook his head, bobbing it off behind her. The men were faltering now, and Hannah turned, to see what appeared to be the roof of a bus screeching towards them.

Johan, the Avenging Aryan, was somewhat confused when the bus hit him. He blinked, sandwiched between the vehicle and his men. Then they were over the river and falling. Hannah vaulted the bus, her vicious battlecry of “Jeeeeeeeeeeeews!”sounding out above the splashing and howling of the other Nazis. In each hand she held a bladed baton, and before they whirred into invisibility, Wei saw that they were swastikas. His hand went up, the spinning buzzsaw halted and he pushed back, cracking the juddering baton between her eyes. Hannah stumbled and Wei tossed her over the edge.

As Hannah hit the water, the Avenging Aryan was rising, arms crossed. His head broke the water, only to find the bus crushed against his face. Twin Aryan blue beams sliced the bus in two and the pieces fell away to be replaced by a sedan. An angry flick of his hand sent the car tumbling away, beyond the south shore. Then something smaller – he recognised the blurry shape as being an anti-tank demolition charge, and it exploded against his forehead, streams of hypersonic, molten metal deflecting from his National Socialist flesh. He hovered above the surface of the water, and stared death at the Major and Wei, though in this case, not literally. They both had their weapons at the ready. “Such pitiful arms can not even bruise me.” he spat with typical Nazi hatred.

“No, but they can turn your female kameraden and Hans there,” Johan half cocked his head, one eye turning to look. It was Hans, and he was keeping Hannah's head above water. The Major continued: “Into a fairly good imitation of chunky soup.”

“Campbells.” Wei added, and the Major glanced in his direction. He turned back to the Aryan.

“So back off.”

It was at this point that cyborg velocityraptors burst from the river, their ramjet-packs switching from water breathing mode. Their plasma beams roared into life, sending up enormous clouds of steam. Enraged, Johan turned on the reptilian attackers, blue beams streaking out to slice them from the sky. Jet-packs fired, sending raptors into aerobatic tumbles to match the fighters dogfighting further up. Wei and the Major leapt away from each other as the Aryan's eyebeams began to slice the bridge into chunks. They were driven further apart, and Wei signaled for the Major to go on.

The aerial combat continued, as Johan showed the raptors the hard fists of National Socialism.

*

Battle raged. Help had arrived in the form of a flanking attack from the roof tops – a cloud of missiles, of steel rain mortar rounds. Johnson did not care, nor did he notice. He saw only Sophie, saw everything about her. He was a telepath, a sponge. From an early age, he had built a wall between his mind and all those minds in the outside world. Yet, she was still there, warm fingers prying open the psychic membranes and metaphysical barriers. Her insistence would break through on its own, but Johnson helped, and opened himself. At once, the man that was Samuel Johnson was lost. A six year marriage, a five year old son, a promising career bordering on its tenth year ... almost three decades of memories, almost three decades of Samuel Johnson smothered, shattered ... gone. Washed away in an ocean of thought.

Sophie felt the man slip away, and encapsulated 'him'. Holding the limp, drooling face in her hands, she put 'him' back into place. There might have been a few missing memories here and there, but the truly important ones remained. Sam Johnson rose to his feet, and wiped his mouth. “Whoa.” he whispered, rubbing his forehead. He glanced down at the white haired girl, who smiled back. He could feel his breakfast in his throat, and forced it back down, quite literally, with his psychokinesis. He saw the enemy, felt a surge of anger and reached out. Frightening forces beyond what he had held previously discharged, a starburst that blasted tanks and men into sprays of atoms and liquefied armour.

He turned to find Sophie, but she was walking away, he reached out for her, had a flash of intuition, and snapped a hypervelocity penetrator in midair. Sophie sniffed. Not the man of her dreams.

*

Faustan sneered up at the sky as another of the sky-fortresses pulled away. While he had known that such a thing would happen eventually, he hadn't expected attack forces to come down from orbit. The Americans could do something similar to this, but this was clearly not the North American SDI. By all accounts, the enemy soldiers in action were equipped with Saintly Concerns equipment, which was inexplicable. Faustan shrugged off any compulsion to speculate and turned back to the evacuation efforts of his men. He and a select few would go on alone.

He approached the kill-cleric, Yamen. He was dressed in the gridded robe, and the smooth casing of his cybernetic head was studded with visual sensors and mounted a smooth, vaguely human face molded from white plastic. As a sign of respect, Yamen turned this false face towards the Enginquisitor. Faustan inclined his head – he did not like Yamen, and it had nothing to do with his inhuman mechanical augmentation. Yamen was a representative of Vael. “I am worried, Enginquisitor.” the cleric hummed.

“Worried?” Faustan repeated, gathering his robes together amidst the wash of air off a nearby ornithopter's wings.

“Indeed. About whether withdrawing is the right move. However,” he paused, and gestured in the direction of the target hospital. “Will we be able to complete our objective and escape?”

As he opened his mouth to speak, there was the sound of electrothermal gunfire, and Faustan immediately donned his helmet. The channels were filled with confusion, the barking orders of optiones and the calm commands of the Centuria Leader. The Enginquisitor signaled for confirmation on the nature of the attacking force, even as ornithopter gunships detached from skyscraper walls. One man, and he was dismantling everything in his path. Faustan waved his personal bodyguard forward

One man. Major Ulysses Stirling. He almost felt as though he was on fire, his heart thrumming in his chest. His did not blink. He did not stop. From cover, to cover, leaving a web of cracks wherever his feet touched the ground. The enemy tried to get a bead on him, but the Major was too fast. They dropped like puppets with their strings cut as he swept through them. When his repeater was empty, he would reload with one hand, snatching up his side arm to dispassionately dispatch yet more soldiers. Gunships advanced on him, and he advanced on them, leaping up to grab a hold. His knife flashed out, sliced through a wing and the 'thopter tumbled away. He leapt again, planting his second limpet mine.

Hitting the ground at a run, the Major ducked into the cover of a heavy lifter, killed those inside and took control of its point defense coils. Lighting discharged, flaring up against the the shell of the oncoming gunship. Missiles erupted on their pylons. He kicked open the cockpit door and rounded the nose of the craft, and saw two men, both resplendent in robes of glittering silicon. The Major swung up the special munitions launcher, fired it with the similar weapon on his repeater. Two forty-mil steel rain shell crossed the mere fifty metres between the men in a tenth of a second. They erupted, unleashing a spray of tungsten flechettes that fanned outwards, buzzing like a thousand angry bees.. They all paused in midair, before falling to the earth.

The Major blinked at that, then felt a sudden tightness, a tingling feeling that was so short to be nearly imperceptible. Then beneath his feet, the concrete shattered, dust leaping up to obscure him. A fist that felt as though it was the size of a house crashed into Stirling, lifting him up and sending him tumbling. He blinked spots from his eyes, saw his rifle ruined and handgun missing. From his position on the ground, he could see two set of feet approaching. He pushed himself up, jumped, crouched on the top of the transport and pushed again. In mid flight he cocked his arm back, hand flat. Piezoelectric carbon-carbon reshaped, flattened, hardened.

Ulysses stopped, a metre out from Faustan. The Enginquisitor waved one hand in front of his face, and the Major hit the ground headfirst. He came into a crouch, and saw the other man bring a weapon around – some sort of bladed gun. Together, their right arms moved. There was a blue flash, and the Major closed his hand. He stood, still skidding, and opened his fist. A still warm slug fell from his palm to clatter against the ground.

Yamen's feet shifted slightly backwards, and he almost jumped at the hollow sound of Faustan clapping. “I have business to attend to, cleric. As do you.” he turned away and strode off. The Major began to follow, and Yamen walked out to meet him. Stirling reached to his belt, slid his fingers into the guard of his knife and drew it out with a keen ringing sound. With a flash, they struck, blades flick-flicking. Sparks sprang up with the contact of long knife to short sword. The blur of Yamen's blade almost carved open the Major's face, but he pulled himself out of the way, and only his electronic eyepatch was sliced in two. He stepped forward and they grappled, struggled with wrists locked. The Major stepped inside Yamen's guard, and flipped his knife from its reverse hold.

In slow motion, Yamen watched the upward jab come within moments of transfixing his augmented brain. Then the Major's arm straightened, fist smashing Yamen's plastic face, tripping him up. Yamen caught his fall with one hand and pushed, kicking out at Stirling with skull-crunching force. The Major dodged back, and the cleric was on his feet. Blades went snicker-snack, vorpal edges singing against each other with high enough pitch to put cracks in glass. The Major drove forward, caught Yamen's wrist and bent him back, elbow in the robed figure's throat.

In that moment, he was looking at Faustan no more than a hundred metres up the street, holding outstretched what appeared to be a hand held laser designed by some Gothic architect from twelfth century France. There was a throaty gasp from the cleric, cut off by an ear splitting roar of heat, light, and sound.

Truly, it only lasted for a few millionths of a second. Faustan pulled the firing stud, and a pulse of invisible electromagnetic energy of one frequency or another struck the Major on the right side of his chest. At once, his million-dollar suit of armour turned into a mirror, attempting to shed energy and heat. Microfilaments hissed under the strain, and reradiated energy vaporised Yamen's heavy cloak, flashed synthetic psuedoflesh into steam and half-fried his brain in his metal skull. The earth went orange around their feet. Both men were tossed away by the resulting explosion.

Faustan watched as heat gases were vented through the mouths of angels form into the barrel of his laser. He ejected the warped projector and inserted a new one, turned away, and kept walking. “Good bye, Yamen.” he said, with more cheer than he had felt over the last few days.

Amidst the smell of cooked meat and the sound of sizzling, Stirling forced himself into a sitting position. He had once been deployed inside a volcano, to take down another in the long line of deranged madmen. He felt much as he did then. Extremely uncomfortable.

He gingerly touched a raw patch of flesh. The suit had ablated away around the point where he had been hit. The octopus camouflage polymer was gone, and parts of the hard armour plates on his upper right arm had cracked. Apart from having a large portion of his face nearly lobster red, as he got to his feet and glanced at the still steaming, somewhat bubbling assassin, the Major felt as though he had done quite well for himself.

[Vehrec]

So. . . the major survived being at the center of an attack that melted the man-borg next to him. Nasty. Also, Sam Johnson is so not Sophie's type. He can't even keep his brain in!
>.> Btw, what's Alexi been doing with himself? Walking around, maybe annoying Aryans? Or the Velocityraptors?

[Ford Prefect]

Btw, what's Alexi been doing with himself? Walking around, maybe annoying Aryans? Or the Velocityraptors?

He's fighting laser tanks. There were going to be scenes of him bouncing lance-blasts off a shield of his own creation and messing around with a person's personal gravity (fly away!).

[Ford Prefect]

Did you say climax? Because I think you said climax. It's a pity about the shorter length, but I really liked the line it ended upon.

Acid
Overture - Things Might Get Trippy
Part Ten

White hair streaming in the wind, Sophie stopped to look up at the sky. There was a faint curve to the light, as the weight and intensity of the thought-bubble increased. A fighter came apart in flames, the cascade of debris coming down, briefly sliding upon the wall of thought before permeating it. The pieces dropped in slow motion, then took on normal properties. Sophie did not know the concept of 'spacetime', but she had a feeling that something was getting bent out of whack. She turned away and stepped inside the Charité; another step towards the past.

*

Faustan whirled and swung his arm diaagonally. Lightning arced briefly against the sedan, freezing it in place. He grit his teeth and pushed it back, when something fast skidded underneath and swept his feet out from under him. The Enginquisitor buoyed himself up on a cushion of electromagnetic force, and found the soldier from before moving into a lock. The Major put Faustan's right over his shoulder, and put his own arm around the back of the Faustan's neck. The esper tried to peel him off using his electrokinesis, failed, and pulled out a short knife with his left hand. Stirling had his leg hooked around Faustan's, and bent the Enginquistor's knee until he was slammed into the ground.

The laser was twisted out of Faustan's hand, but now the Major's hold was only on Faustan's arm. The wall behind his back crunched inwards, and he aimed down at Faustan from his vantage point two storeys up. He clicked the firing stud and glowing lines suddenly crisscrossed the world. Glass ran in torrents, concrete flamed, a Volkswagen was sliced in two. The Major dropped to the ground and wondered whether he should pull the trigger – the laser was so hot that it would have melted the flesh of a baseline.

Faustan crushed him against the ground, then once again hit with force enough to leave the Major lying in a crater. “You're as resilient as a cockroach.” he muttered, raising his hand up. Sparks of electricity danced between his finger tips, and the Major pulled the trigger. The lens was never designed to used more than once, such was the magnitude of the power passing through it. Faustan's exquisitely tooled laser exploded, and the Major went crashing through a wall, and then a second. He rolled into a sitting position and grasped his wrist, hissing. Most of the glove had been blasted away, and his flesh was newly seared. He flexed it experimentally, then glanced up to see Faustan gesture in his direction.

In a Saturnine halo of shattered brick, plaster and glass, the Major tumbled out into a new street, skidding into a crouch. His damaged hand had found his only weapon, though his knife was a pointless gesture against a psychokinetic of this magnitude. Faustan emerged, blasting his way out, and the Major leaped, then froze. With a jerk on his head, Faustan tossed Stirling more than a hundred metres down the road.

The Major rose, and Faustan made to rub his forehead, then noticed his helmet. Shaking his head, he stood in the centre of the street and spread his arms. Stirling drew out his knife and activated its remarkably robust sonic generator. A faint blue light was building up around the Enginquisitor, before rippling into blue ribbons of closeting electricity. Cracks spread from his feet to define a wide circle, and he could feel the familiar pressure at the back of his head as implants activated. The Major broke into loping sprint and Faustan unleashed his power.

It was like a threshing machine has passed through the road. A bow wave of electric death went forth and crushed concrete into digestible chunks and hit the Major like a tsunami. His feet were dug in, quite literally, and he pushed, perhaps impossibly, against it. Lightning clawed and pulled at him, troe into his suit, blasted armour plates free. A hundred times the intensity of any stint in the electric chair ... like being in the heart of violent thunderstorm ... the Major found that he lacked strong enough electrical metaphors. His skin was beginning to split, and blood boiled away from him, swept back by the seemingly endless wave of force. Teeth clamped together, fingers sealed around the hilt of his knife, the Major pushed, feet kicking against foundation stone, attempting to halt his slow backwards movement.

Hands beginning to shake and with a thumping headache growing at the base of his skull, Faustan couldn't help but marvel at this man's determination. If he did not know whether he could maintain this intensity for much longer, lest he wanted his skull explosively peeled open. He relented, and the Major hit him like some human missile. The myomer bundles in Faustan's muscles ballooned and tightened; his his hands around the Major's wrist, he halted the downward fall of the humming knife. Blood dripped from the Major's face.

They both recoiled as something like a sharp intake of breathed shivered through both of them. The Enginquisitor grasped the back of his neck and quickly unhooked his helmet. He spat blood as a throbbing weight began to crush against his mind. Something above the constant howl of amplified fear and anger. Something like the first taste of pure, abject terror.

*

Psychometry was a word given to the psychic technique of 'reading' objects. It was a technique that could show an esper the past. Over years, the traces would loose their potency. After nine years, it would take a highly skilled sensitive to see what the room had to conceal. Sophie Windsor was that skilled. She stood by the bed, and when she placed her hand down, she could feel the warmth of her mother. When she craned up her neck, she could see a kindly, lined face, taking her. Sophie blinked and felt something warm and wet run down her cheeks. She opened her mouth to protest, to stop him from turning away, to make him give her back ... but nothing came out. Her knees felt weak, and she found she couldn't hold up her weight anymore. Sophie sat on the floor, and cried.

And as she cried, she found herself letting go. She opened herself to the world, and a million voices amplified a million times over screamed in their fear and their anger and their blind hate. Ten thousand tons of negative emotion fell upon her; it was nothing less than sluice gates being torn open and dark waters swelling to fill the void. In one moment, Sophie knew everything there was to know about that fear, that anger, that hatred. She intimately emotions she had never had a chance to learn, that she had barely known had existed before now. Tiny fingers dug into her scalp and Sophie screamed. Screamed for the first time since she had been born in this very room.

Like the shockwave of a nuclear explosion, the very force of her terror shook Berlin, shook Germany, to its very foundations. What glass still stood in its frames exploded outwards. Whole buildings crumbled. The beautiful dome atop the Reichstag dropped, smashing out the heart of the building. Winds that exceeded the highest estimates of the Beaufort scale bit deep into the city, making skyscrapers bend and vehicles shift and roll like toys. The rivers turned white and spray filled the air, almost like solid sheets of water. Overhead, planes tumbled, and not even Lucifer's skilled piloting could stop a Mave from being smashed through two city blocks. When the wave hit, Faustan could feel something vital give way at the base of his skull, and fluid burst free, instantly swept away. Like Ulysses, he was bent over, fighting against the terrific wind sweeping through like the hammer of the gods. It seemed as though shards of crystal were being riven through his brain and he cried out silently.

And all around the world, other sensitives felt it. A young woman named Sybil, up late and reading, suddenly dropped her copy of Moby Dick and started to weep uncontrollably. In a sleepy little neighborhood in the east of America, a woman named Andrea awoke with sweat in her red hair, cracks in her window and terrible images in her heart. Sam Johnson, was driven insane instantly, artificially inflated power worthless. In Italy, Alexis Vael's psionic aide began to vomit up litres of blood, gibbering on her desk. Beneath the ocean, sealed in mighty submarines, psychic pterosaurs began to screech and fight among themselves. In a basement room somewhere in Denmark, Cecilie Lehmann reclined with her boyfriend's hairy head asleep in her lap, and felt blood trickle from one nostril. And across the face of the globe, a hundred thousand other espers felt it. Some were killed. Some went mad and were lost forever. Many would go into bouts of depression that would last the rest of their lives.

Closer to home, Earl Makeson paused in his effort of trying to dislodge a broken pipe from his gut. Above him, the clouds had been swept together, blocking out the sun with a disk that covered the entire city. He could see the eye, and see growing ever so slowly, a ghostly sphere. “You have got to be kidding!” he laughed to himself, but his words were silent.

Even with the shaking, even with his aides screaming and cheering and carting around printed reports, Electrobishop Holsman could not take his eyes from his spectroscope. He knew that dimly, he had provided physical evidence of decaying protons. Yet, he did not care for this epoch making event. He did not see the blazing white half-sphere upon his device. All he saw was time's most radiant butterfly breaking free of its cocoon. Tears ran down his face and were caught in deep set lines. His inexplicable suicide marred the celebration of the completion of his life's work.

And at ground zero, the Major stood with the Enginquisitor, watching the wall of light grow ever closer. Slowly, it swallowed everything in its path. The Major linked his hands behind his head and looked at his foe. “You ever see Akira!?” he shouted, and Faustan cocked his head. The wind had died down, but it was still loud enough that he thought he may have heard wrong.

“What!?” was the understandably confused reply.

“I'm guessing this is pretty much your fault.” the Major shouted, sheathing his knife and striding forward. “So you can help me fix this.”

“What!?” Faustan repeated, louder this time. Regardless, he followed Stirling, walking towards the ... could it be called an explosion? And it moved forward, not much faster than a walk. When the Major stopped, the frontal wave was only eighty metres distant, and was still coming. They didn't speak, which Faustan found worrying.

“Just follow my lead.” the Major whispered hoarsely as the light filled their world. He took a step into it, and disappeared from this universe.

“What the fuck is Akira!?” Faustan asked, moments before he too was swallowed.